his grip on me slackening just a little.
"What the hell did you do?" Fox asked his dad, his face written in pain as he raised his gun a little higher, a decision forming in his deep green eyes as his finger kissed the trigger.
Luther shook his head, stumbling for words as he realised his son was really gonna do it. And I was ready to see him die for his crimes.
"Stop!" Chase's voice boomed from the stairs.
I couldn't help but glance towards them as the sound of him half falling down them reached us and he appeared on his back at the bottom of them, cursing his broken leg.
"It's not true," he gasped. "It wasn't Luther - it was Shawn. Fucking Shawn and his mind games. He told me about it while he had me locked up in that fucking basement. He said Maverick arrived at the prison while he was serving time there and he took the opportunity to fuck with the Harlequins. He paid off the guards, made them get Harlequin tattoos so it would be more convincing."
I shook my head as I tried to compute that. It didn't make sense. Why would Shawn have gone to all that effort to strike at Maverick back then? Rick was just a kid, barely a member of the Harlequin Crew at all and no real threat to him.
"Why would he do that?" JJ barked, clearly thinking along the same lines as I was.
"Because Luther killed his brother," Chase explained, gripping the doorframe and heaving himself up onto his good leg as he gave us all pained looks. “Didn’t you?”
He turned to Luther who nodded mutely, seeming in shock over the news descending on him, lowering his gun as he looked between all of us. Fox’s gun was still pointed at his head and he didn’t seem inclined to lower it until he had more proof.
Chase went on, "It's been playing on repeat in my head over and over again since Shawn told me, but I didn't know what to believe. He put so many twisted ideas into my head that they all started banding together. I'm sorry, I should have told you."
"So why didn't you?" Fox snarled.
"Because that motherfucker was trying to get in my mind the whole time I was in there. He told me all kinds of crazy shit. Stuff to fuck with me. Stuff designed to worm its way into my brain and lay eggs there. I don't know what to think of any of it anymore, but it seems to me like this has to be true."
"I only wanted Maverick to come to his senses and realise that family was the most important thing," Luther said in a hollow tone. "I had men inside who were tasked to keep an eye on him, to keep the other inmates away if he seemed to be getting into any trouble and though he refused to have anything to do with my men in there, they reported back to me saying he had no issues with any of the other prisoners..."
"That's because his nightmares were the guards. The only inmate to hurt him did it behind locked doors where no one else could see," I hissed, the rage in me still running rampant through my flesh. Maybe Luther wasn't wholly to blame for what had happened to Maverick in there, but he was still the reason he'd been sent to prison in the first place. And I was the reason he'd felt the need to do that.
The fight went out of my limbs and JJ tentatively released me.
I made a move to walk away and Luther grabbed my arm, making me look up at him as blood slowly trickled down his chin from the wounds I'd given him.
"I didn't know," he said, his voice cracking just enough to show me how much this truth was costing him, but it was all a little too late for that.
"That doesn't fix it though, does it?" I muttered, shrugging his arm off and crossing the room towards Chase.
I wrapped an arm around his waist, noticing the way he flinched at my touch. No doubt his tumble on the stairs made his ribs flare with pain again. He leaned on me as I half heaved him back up to his room, the silence stretching between us as we went and the conversation between the others downstairs breaking out again as they came to terms with what I'd just told them and what it